2025/10/23 by María Sanz‐Paz, Sanz-Paz, Maria, Nicole Siegel +17
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · #Advanced biosensing and bioanalysis techniques #FOS: Physical sciences #Near-Field Optical Microscopy #Optics (physics.optics) #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.20667
openalex publication_date 2025/10/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Single-photon emitters radiate as electric dipoles, which limits light collection efficiency and complicates integration into flat photonic devices. Developing nanophotonic structures capable of directing photon emission with tunable angular distributions in the visible spectrum has been pursued for applications ranging from integrated optical systems to discrimination of molecular species. To date, such directional control has been achieved using components whose overall footprint is larger than the emission wavelength and often rely on lossy plasmonic components. Here, we employ the DNA origami technique for deterministic nanoscale assembly, positioning single fluorophores in nanometric proximity to a single silicon spherical nanoparticle and demonstrate unidirectional emission with forward-to-backward intensity ratios up to ~7 dB. Furthermore, we show that a single silicon nanosphere antenna can function as a color router or a beam steerer depending on its size, emitter spectral range and emitter-nanoparticle distance.